<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Ungrounded by OmoYasha</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27399697">Ungrounded</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmoYasha/pseuds/OmoYasha'>OmoYasha</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Omovember 2020 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters: Sword &amp; Shield | Pokemon Sword &amp; Shield Versions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Gen, Omorashi, Piers is a hot mess, Swearing, Wetting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:55:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27399697</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmoYasha/pseuds/OmoYasha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Omovember day four: stuck in traffic</p><p>One thing is for sure: Piers is *never* agreeing to share a flying taxi with Raihan after this.  *Never again.*</p><p>(aka: why Piers missed the opening ceremony of his baby sister's gym challenge)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kibana | Raihan &amp; Nezu | Piers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Omovember 2020 [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ungrounded</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They hadn’t even reached the stadium yet, and Piers was already deeply, <em>sincerely</em> regretting agreeing to share a corvi-cab with Raihan.</p><p>It wasn’t even about the overly cheerful dragon trainer himself, either – despite their dramatically different personalities and worldviews, so far the two of them had gotten on surprisingly well in the past when circumstances forced them to interact.  Well, forced Piers to be sociable; Raihan was gregarious enough that he hardly needed to be <em>pressured</em> in order to strike up a conversation.</p><p>No, Raihan could be a bit <em>too much</em> for Piers, but he seemed like a decent enough sort of person.  Certainly not enough of an arse that the singer would refuse to share a cab with him out of either general principle or self-defense.</p><p>The issue wasn’t even Piers’s mood; the feelings of dull exhaustion and anxiety chewing at him.  That had nothing to do with his fellow gym leader – while he would be a tad more comfortable on his own right now, that was par for the course lately.</p><p>None of those things mattered.</p><p>The issue with sharing a cab was being trapped in a tiny cabin hundreds of feet in the air with someone who only vaguely qualified as an acquaintance, when he really <em>desperately </em>needed to piss.</p><p> </p><p>“Thought y’said this was gonna be <em>faster</em> than taking the train?” he said, frowning out the window at the Motostoke lights, which remained frustratingly tiny and distant.</p><p>Raihan rubbed the back of his head apologetically.</p><p>“It usually is, I swear – this year’s crowd of hopefuls must be pretty popular, to draw such a crowd.”</p><p>Piers gave a noncommittal hum.</p><p><em>He </em>was certainly more interested in the results than usual, and he hoped he wasn’t the only one… but Arceus knew the people here supporting his <em>sis</em> weren’t the ones taking up all of the damn taxi landing places!  Nobody from <em>Spikemuth</em> would have the cash to shell out for casual cab rides, that was for sure.</p><p>Hell, Piers himself got a steep discount on cab fare as an active gym leader on the challenge circuit… and he’d still planned on walking to Hammerlocke and taking the train until Raihan convinced him to share one.</p><p>Raihan grinned at him playfully.</p><p>“Guess you wouldn’t know what it’s normally like though, would you?  When’s the last time you even bothered showing your face at one of these things?”</p><p>Piers shrugged, leaning against the window and propping his chin on his hand.</p><p>“Dunno.  Bea’s first year, maybe?” He muttered.  Raihan snorted.</p><p>“That barely counts.”</p><p>“I was there.”</p><p>“For twenty minutes! When was the last time before that?”</p><p>Piers shrugged again.  He did know – it had been his second year as a gym leader, before he had quite gotten the hang of which events he could afford to skip.</p><p>He was not exactly fond of formality, or the kind of posh showmanship that league events seemed to require.  He always felt… out of place, when he attended.  Wrong footed and off kilter.  And what fans he had, he suspected were no more interested in the opening ceremonies than he was.</p><p>Between his gym and his music and his sister, and the constant struggle to keep his hometown alive, he was never short on ideas for how to spend his time – he was typically much shorter on available time to spend.</p><p>Quite simply, he had better things to do than to attend league ceremonies and social events, and given the enmity between himself and Rose, he had no issue communicating this through flimsy excuses and lackluster responses.  He didn’t <em>care</em> if the Chairman though that the “important business” on his agenda was nothing more than laying around in his underwear and staring at the ceiling for six hours straight – the <em>sentiment</em> was accurate enough, even if he was usually engaged in something slightly more productive.</p><p>But it seemed a bit rude to tell Raihan point blank that he’d skipped as many social events as possible, and would rather be chased by a swarm of angry Galvantulas than spend an evening at a fancy dinner… considering the dragon trainer was one of the people <em>present</em> at most of said social events.</p><p>Raihan didn’t seem to mind the lack of answer.  He glanced up from whatever he’d been scrolling through on his phone, and tapped his chin.</p><p>“What made you decide to come this year, anyway? I was pretty surprised.  I mean, Gordie and Nessa have a betting pool on what excuse you’re going to use each year – I don’t think anybody really even <em>expects</em> you to attend anymore, and we all know you hate it.  So why bother?”</p><p>Piers fiddled with one of his bracelets for a moment, trying to decide how honestly he wanted to answer.</p><p>He cleared his throat.</p><p>“S’for my sis.”</p><p>Raihan blinked.</p><p>“Your sister?”</p><p>“Yeah.  Marnie.  She’s old enough to challenge this year – can’t leave her thinkin’ her bro’s not cheering her on for <em>her</em> kickoff, y’know?”</p><p>“Isn’t Leon’s kid brother challenging this year too? He’s stoked.  You must be pretty proud of your sister, huh?”</p><p>“Mmm.” Piers nodded, a small smile crossing his face.</p><p>“Marnie’s amazing.  She’ll make a <em>boss</em> gym leader someday. If she doesn’t make Champion first – says she’s gonna take Leon’s place, ‘steada mine.”</p><p>“Ooh, bold kid.  Guess I’ll look forward to seeing her then… if she makes it past you, that is.”</p><p>“Ha! Course she will.  If I know my sis, there’s no way she’s gonna lose t’the likes of me.”</p><p>Piers took a moment to bask in his adoration of Marnie, glad to think about something other than his current discomfort.  He wouldn’t hold back when she challenged him, and he had no doubt that when – not if, <em>when</em> – she made it all the way back to Spikemuth, he’d be getting his ass handed to him regardless.  He wouldn’t have it any other way. </p><p>Marnie was rapidly growing into the brilliant little spitfire of a girl she was always meant to be, and she would be a fine champion if the fates were in her favor.  But winning against <em>Leon</em> would be a longshot for anyone, even his sister.  And he had to admit – though he’d never lay it on Marnie – there was a selfish part of him that hoped she wouldn’t win.  Because if Marnie would be a fine champion, she’d make a <em>phenomenal </em>gym leader.  His sister had it in her to <em>thrive</em> as a gym leader, in all the ways that Piers merely managed to <em>survive</em>.  And he was so, so tired.</p><p>But none of that mattered yet – first, she had to take the challenge.  And as her big brother, his job right now was just to cheer her on, to help her make the best show of it she possibly could.  Be there for her if she needed him – though knowing Marnie, she would be deeply offended at the idea that she would need support from anyone.  But as much as possible, Piers would be there anyways.  It’s what he did.</p><p>….it was why he was stuck in this stupid taxi, because there had <em>somehow </em>been so much traffic around the city that Corvi-cabs had to circle indefinitely waiting for their turn to land.  And unfortunately, neither Piers nor Raihan were exactly morning people; they had <em>not </em>gotten an early enough start to be anywhere near the front of the “line”.</p><p>Raihan’s voice – uncharacteristically hesitant – cut through his thoughts.</p><p>“You alright there, Piers?”</p><p>He sounded worried.  Why was Raihan – oh.  Raihan was worried because he was fucking <em>shaking.</em> Perfect.</p><p>“…Shouldn’t’ve drunk so much coffee ‘fore I left.”  he admitted, torn between irritation and embarrassment.  It was true – nerves on his sister’s behalf had kept him awake the last few nights, and Piers – already tending towards the nocturnal – had not trusted his ability to stay awake for the cab ride and ceremony without doing something embarrassing, like spacing out or falling asleep on Raihan.  Literally, <em>on top of</em> Raihan, given the cramped size of the cabs.  Hence, the coffee.  Lots of coffee – probably a bit too much coffee even for Piers, with his sky high tolerance for caffeine.  Coffee which was probably not helping his anxiety, and was also now hitting him squarely in the bladder, with the <em>worst </em>timing.</p><p>Well, the whole “avoiding embarrassing situations” thing was just working out <em>fantastic</em> so far, wasn’t it?</p><p>Raihan made a sympathetic noise.</p><p>“Upset your stomach, huh? That’s rough, man.”</p><p>That was… definitely not the problem.</p><p>“….yeah.  Somethin’ like that.” he mumbled, not really caring enough to clarify.  It was awkward enough – and it wasn’t like discussing it would make any difference.  To his embarrassment, Raihan unlatched the window enough to lean out and shout to the driver.</p><p>“Ey! My friend here’s not feeling well – how long till we can land?”</p><p>The driver shouted back an answer which was hard to catch over the wind, but sounded suspiciously like “hell if I know”.</p><p>Raihan made a face, and shrugged at Piers apologetically.</p><p>“Sorry mate.  But I’m sure it’ll get better once we land.  Especially if you eat something – coffee’s always worst on an empty stomach.”</p><p> </p><p>The next twenty minutes crawled by painfully slow, as Piers concentrated on trying to look normal, and not fidget too badly.  Though by the cautious glances Raihan kept sending his way, he was probably failing at both.</p><p>“Hey, you goi-“</p><p>“I need t’have a slash.”  Piers blurted, cutting off the question.</p><p>“You need to what now?”</p><p>Piers cursed loudly, which apparently Raihan understood perfectly fine.</p><p>He was <em>proud</em> of his Spikemuth accent.  It was a part of his home he carried with him – a badge of honor.  He spoke clear enough; people seldom had trouble catching his meaning when he spoke.  Unless, that is, he was exceptionally tired.  Or drunk.  Or very anxious.  Apparently, being pumped up on far too much caffeine, while desperate for a piss and with his nerves shot through the roof was <em>not</em> helpful to his enunciation.  Probably, if he’d been speaking to Marnie – or any other Spikemuth native – they’d have understood him, even with his words a bit crushed together and slurred.</p><p>Raihan was not from Spikemuth, and was looking at him in bewildered concern.</p><p>Piers leaned his head back, took a deep breath, and said – as slowly and clearly as he could manage,</p><p>“I need. To take. A leak. <em>Arright?</em>”</p><p>“You…. Oh! Is that why… that’s what you meant about the coffee, then?”</p><p>“No, I just thought y’d’wanna know bout my beverage choices. <em>Yes, that’s why I mentioned the coffee.</em>”</p><p>“Jeesh – how much freaking coffee <em>did</em> you drink, bro?  You seem, uh… a little off, today.”</p><p>Piers twitched his shoulders in another half-shrug.</p><p>“Dunno. One?”</p><p>“One cup, seriously?”</p><p>“Nah… one pot.”</p><p>There was a brief moment of silence.  Piers craned his neck to peer out the window, trying to judge whether they were circling any closer to the landing area.</p><p>“You drank a whole pot of coffee.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Shit man, I’ve seen how big your coffee maker is! Why would you do that before the kick-off ceremony, anyway?”</p><p>Piers glared at him, half hidden behind his hair.  His coffee maker was a perfectly normal size, thank you very much.  …granted, he did normally make coffee for half of Team Yell at once.  So Raihan <em>might, maybe</em> have a valid point.  Not that he’d admit it.</p><p>“…already said it was a bad idea, didn’ I?”</p><p>He pressed his hands against his thighs, trying not to squirm.</p><p>“We should’ve <em>been there</em> by now, n’ it wouldn’ even be a problem!”</p><p>Raihan raised an eyebrow, as if to express a certain skepticism about that assessment, but he didn’t argue.</p><p>“Yeah, bit of a crap time for traffic, huh?”</p><p>
  <em>“Y’don’t say?”</em>
</p><p>They were quiet again for a few minutes.</p><p>“Are you going to be okay?”</p><p>“Don’ have much of a choice, do I?”</p><p>The cab was tiny – it was already cramped just by having the two men inside, given Piers was taller than average, and Raihan was a damn <em>giant</em>.  It was in the air – there was no place to pull over, or they already would have.  No convenient containers.  He’d just have to wait.</p><p> </p><p>A while later – still only barely closer to Motostoke – Piers jolted up in his seat with an extremely undignified sound.</p><p><em>Fuck</em> waiting.  Waiting was not going to happen – he was pretty sure his body was going to violently veto the plan sometime in the next few minutes.</p><p>He glanced around desperately, but no new solutions had magically appeared in the last ten minutes. He groaned under his breath.</p><p>“…are you alright?”</p><p>“<em>No.”</em></p><p>Piers’s tone – somewhere between frosty and frantic – managed to effectively smother further conversation.  He bounced slightly, fidgeting with the charm on his choker as he struggled to think of a solution.  Piers was excellent at staying calm in a crisis.  What he was <em>not</em> excellent at was thinking with any semblance of rationality on the rare occasions when he <em>wasn’t </em>calm.</p><p>Case in point: now.</p><p>He hadn’t brought anything with him but his clothing and a couple pokeballs.</p><p>Raihan had a backpack.  What would the other trainer have brought?  Didn’t he have an exhibition match later?</p><p>…he’d probably brought snacks for his pokemon, maybe stuff for the shower…</p><p>The shower.</p><p>Piers’s mind latched onto the concept, grinding to a halt for a few seconds before he could fully process his own idea.</p><p>That would be disgusting.  Not to mention humiliating.</p><p>A particularly urgent throb of desperation hit him, and he made a small, pained noise.  Disgusting it was, then.</p><p>“Raihan.”</p><p>Raihan glanced at him, surprised.</p><p>“D’ya have a towel?”</p><p>“Well, yeah…?” Raihan gave Piers a sideways look, clearly unsure what to think of the question.</p><p>“Gimme your towel.”</p><p>“What? Why?”</p><p>“I’m about to piss myself, just give me the fucking towel you useless ass!”</p><p>Of course, out of all the things he’d said that morning, <em>that</em> sentence was the one that came out in perfect, crystal clear standard Galarian.</p><p>Raihan’s eyes widened.  He dumped out the contents of his backpack – probably envisioning just as vividly as Piers had how entirely revolting the alternative would be in such a tight space, if Piers couldn’t hold it.  Which, he couldn’t.  He already felt a bit of dampness in the fabric pressed against his skin – he had doubts about his ability to even get his pants off.  Even if they landed right now, he doubted it would help.</p><p>Raihan had always had an admirably strong sense of self preservation.  He thrust the towel at Piers, and pointedly looked out the window, instead of watching.</p><p>He wasted no time, struggling to pull his pants down enough before realizing abruptly that the tightness of the space, the fact that he was sitting down, and his <em>treacherously shaky hands</em> were going to make that all but impossible.  His bladder spasmed, and a dribble leaked out to make a small wet spot beneath his hands.  He hissed.  If he pissed himself right now, it wouldn’t just be him – it would get <em>all over Raihan as well,</em> and that was a level of humiliation he would <em>never</em> live down.</p><p>Panicking, all he could think to do was press the towel to his crotch, leggings and all.  As if on cue, his bladder just… gave up, and he was helplessly soaking the towel.  He couldn’t help but let out a shaky breath, some of the tension draining away along with the urine.  He shifted around, making sure to adjust the towel so he was using the drier parts as well. The disaster was averted – he could <em>breathe.</em></p><p>And then, as his stream tapered off, and a few seconds ticked by, his brain caught up to the situation, and he was right back to scarcely breathing.</p><p><em>Yes, </em>he’d avoided pissing <em>on Raihan</em>, but he was still in a cab, with a blatant wet spot glaring like a traffic sign on his neon pink leggings, on his way to a formal pokemon league ceremony with practically <em>every trainer in Galar</em> watching.  He was <em>holding a piss-soaked towel.</em> He pissed on <em>Raihan’s </em>towel.  That was… this was barely better than just fully wetting himself.  <em>What the hell did he just do?</em></p><p>“Piers?  …hey! Piers!”  Raihan elbowed him, and he jumped slightly, startled.</p><p>“Breathe, mate.  Calm down a sec, alright?”</p><p>Breathe, right.</p><p>Piers took a deep breath.  Then another.  He kept his eyes closed.  Looking at anything – but especially Raihan – sounded far too overwhelming at the moment.</p><p>He listened to Raihan’s breathing, tried to match it to his.</p><p>After an indeterminate length of time, the driver called something back through Raihan’s window, and it was Raihan’s turn to curse.</p><p>“Look, we’re landing in just a minute.”</p><p>Piers’s eyes flew open at that.  He braced himself for <em>some</em> kind of oncoming embarrassment – there was no way he’d be able to get into the building without <em>someone </em>noticing.  He didn’t care if it was league staff or other gym leaders – either option was <em>almost </em>as bad as being seen by the general public.</p><p>“I think you should go home.”</p><p>He froze, the suggestion catching him off guard.  He only had to think it over for a second, though, before he shook his head.</p><p>“I can’t!”</p><p>“Piers, man, you’re a complete freaking <em>mess</em> right now.  I mean, you were <em>kinda </em>a mess even when we met up this morning, but I wasn’t going to say anything.  But right now – how <em>exactly</em> do you think you’re going to get through the kickoff like this?  <em>Nessa</em> is the only person close enough to your size you could bum clothes off of, and she’s kind of the <em>direct opposite </em>of your color scheme.”</p><p>There was an uncomfortable silence, Piers attempting to look at anything that was neither Raihan, nor the wet towel in his hands.</p><p>After a moment, Raihan made a noise of understanding, and said,</p><p>“Oh.  It’s because of your sister, right?”</p><p>Piers glanced at him.</p><p>Raihan gave him what was probably intended to be a reassuring smile, but instead came out vaguely shark-like and threatening.</p><p>“Don’t worry.  I’ll find her and tell her I <em>made </em>you go home because you looked like shit and you wanted to come anyways.  That you weren’t bullshitting to get out of it.  The rest of us’ll cheer her on twice as hard to make up for it, ok?”</p><p>When Piers took a second too long to respond, he added,</p><p>“Your sister’s gotta know you pretty well.  Don’t you think it’d make her worry if she can tell you’re not on your game when you show up?”</p><p>“…you’ll tell Marnie?”</p><p>“That you wanted to come? Yeah.  Of course I will.  If she’s anything like you, she can’t be <em>that</em> hard to find, even in a crowd.”</p><p>Piers blew out a heavy sigh.  Raihan was right.  It wasn’t like there was much that could make this event <em>more </em>of a disaster, and they hadn’t even arrived yet.</p><p>“Yeah.  Yeah, okay.  Fine.  I’ll go.”</p><p>In the next few minutes, Raihan managed to turn up an old shopping bag in his backpack to stuff the towel in, and Piers heard him say something to the cabbie about Piers being sick; telling the man to take him home, presumably.  When the taller man finally swung the door open and climbed out, he paused, and leaned against the door frame a second.</p><p>“Now go home and <em>sleep,</em> Piers.  Get some actual rest – I’ll be ticked if you show up to our next battle looking that wiped!  Just ‘cuz you like training zigzagoons doesn’t mean you oughta look like something they dragged out of a garbage can, you know?  Give me a proper <em>challenge</em>.”</p><p>The rudeness of his words was undercut by his friendly smile.  He stepped away, paused, and turned back to point at Piers.</p><p>“…and don’t you <em>dare </em>drink anymore coffee today, alright? Gonna give yourself a fucking heart attack with that sludge.”</p><p>Piers huffed a surprised laugh at that even as he blushed, and Raihan was gone – long legs carrying him rapidly towards the building.</p><p>He shook his head.  He really did need to get some sleep, didn’t he? </p><p>Ah well.  He’d go home, and sleep, and avoid coffee for at least a few days while he waited for the first challengers to filter through to Spikemuth.</p><p>…..and try to decide how viable a plan it was to avoid the neighboring gym leader for the rest of their natural lives.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Apologies for any mangling of the more british terms - sadly, I am american.<br/>Enjoy!  And feel free to let me know what you think.</p><p>Find me on tumblr at omoyasha.tumblr.com</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>